This Was Not What She Expected
by vieralynn
Summary: Archades 700 O.V. Series: Drace is requested to have dinner with Vayne. She mistakenly thinks he is about to ask her one question when, indeed, he is asking something else. Written for a springkink Drace/Vayne request.


_For springkink prompt Jun 1 - Final Fantasy XII, Vayne/Drace, wooing a lady, "Is this what you say to all the ladies?"_

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**This Was Not What She Expected**

_**Archades, 700 O.V.**_

Drace's fingers fumble with the cap on her pill bottle before it closes with a snap. Without looking, she slips it into the hip pocket on the left side of her jacket. Her eyes remain fixed on her wine glass, drained of all but one last sip, thin crystal ringed with crimson.

She has not come to this meal expecting it to be fast but thirty minutes have passed since soup was served and there was no sign that the main course would arrive soon. Vayne prefers to keep his prey in captivity: a fitting tactic for someone not yet tempered with years of wisdom, for a precocious young man who already thinks himself an author of Ivalice's history but has done no more than take care of two executions.

"You still need to take those… how often?" Vayne's fingers curl around the bowl of his wine glass.

_He knows how often._ "Thrice a day, with food."

"Hm. That is a burden, is it not?" His tone raises to nearly a girlish register as he tilts his head to one side.

"Such are the burdens of living," she replies.

_Thrice a day since last year, for each year to come, and for that, one of humekind's many frailties will not return to strike me down._

The legs of Vayne's chair scrape against the floor as he pulls himself closer. His knee touches her thigh. _Don't flinch._ And she doesn't, not even as his fingers brush against her leg.

The silk of her dress does little to shield her skin from his finger's heat. "The burden of being mortal… the things mortality necessitates. If only we could change that."

His eyes gaze not at her face — Drace is thankful — but at some point in space, somewhere in his mind, in his thoughts, and his fingers absentmindedly brush along her knee: an owner caressing his dog. His house pet, not his hunting hounds, not his guard dogs, not his war dogs. She knew not to flinch. She has been training herself well.

"Do the pills still make you feel weak? All of the other treatments ended, am I correct?"

"I feel fine." She did. "I'm strong enough to resume my post with the 12th fleet—"

"I'm sure you are strong." He looks her in the eye. "Yesterday I saw you practicing your swordplay with… Gabranth. But I think you serve House Solidor best in the post you now have."

Bile raises in her throat. _Pig. He thinks me little different from the concubines kept in the palace's south wing. Except they are different from me in two ways: I carry a sword of the law; they each carry a bastard child._

"What is more important than tutoring and guarding my dear brother Larsa? You do it well. You are suited to it."

_Suited because I have the arms and flesh of a woman but no womb and hacked breasts; because I was passed up for commanding the 12nd fleet; because fate or foul gods in hell humbled me with a gown and slippered feet, shuffling through the cold halls in the hospital wing of Draklor. _

Long, pale fingers touch her cheek. _Don't flinch_. "Drace, you have been entrusted to care for that which most precious to my father, to me. You keep him from harm."

_I sit in the palace, teaching him addition and spelling_. She knew her face had drawn into a harsh grimace; she could not hide it.

"Don't be so hard on yourself." Vayne laughs. His hand settles on her shoulder. "There is not a post among the Judge Magisters more important than yours. And now you are strong enough to take Larsa to see the world that will someday be his, and mine, and ours." His hand squeezes the cloth on her shoulder, fingertips pressing into covered flesh. He leans forward.

_Gods in heaven, no. Don't try to kiss me. Do not try it._

She could see Vayne's eyes narrow for a moment before his lips drew into a smile. His hand squeezes again: jovial, jocular, as if she is his companion. She knows not what to do. Now his hand rubs her arm like she's his pet: some sweet young aristocrat's daughter he's certain that he has charmed. But she is neither young nor a patrician's daughter. His other hand slips to the back of her chair. _Trapped. Look relaxed. Exhale, slowly, exhale. Smile._

"There is something I would like to ask of you" His voice is warm honey poured over spoiled, sour fruit.

"Aye, my Lord," she says softly. She notices a flicker of a coeurl's grin after she says "my lord." _Bastard_.

"No need for such formalities this evening." He pauses, his gaze flickering between her left eye and her right, her nose, her cheekbones, her prematurely greying hair.

_Gods, she was certain of what this leading to. Don't flinch. Stay firm._

"Drace, you protect what is most precious to me. That makes you precious to me too, wouldn't it not? And that is why I need to ask you this—"

His face was near her own now, near enough to catch a faint whiff of wine on his breath. _He is going to ask the inevitable: to take part in his scandalous notion of the perfect ruling family._

"You no longer go to the temple twice a week, like you used to."

This was not what she was expecting.

"I do not."

"Why is that? Do I not once remember a younger version of myself some years ago sitting at your knee hungry for your learned wisdom only to hear you praise the importance of the lessons taught by the Light of Kiltias, and how you have gone to the temple two times a week since you were a child?"

"I no longer see any reason."

"Is that because…?" His other hand reached forward, hovering dangerously close to the silk folds of her dress, silk covering a scar across her abdomen: a clean, red scar. A perfect fine line. The line of a surgeon, not a swordsman. Vayne was not asking a question. There was no need to respond.

"The Gods have failed you." His hand settles on her arm.

"They fail all of us."

"I agree."

_At least there is one thing we truly agree upon_. She couldn't stop herself from smiling at that thought.

"Ah, this is the Drace I remember." Both hands clasp her shoulders now, clasping her like she is a long lost sister, mother, companion, friend. She is anything but. And she knew that he wants her as something more. She knew one more question was coming.

"Drace?"

_Here it comes._

One hand rises to touch her hair, gently pushing it back from her face. A touch mimicking that of a lover's, followed by a featherlight caress trailing along the side of her cheek. _Do not be fooled. The marrow of this man nothing but brutality cloaked in a gentleman's gentility._

"Drace, I wish to make you immortal."

_Only the son of an emperor would think he could woo a woman with a line like that: promises of statues in city squares and palace courtyards._

"I want you to come with me tomorrow to speak with Cid."

_Promises of heading projects that will be remembered with regret after the ink has dried on history's pages._

"Cid and I are working on a new project. Bergan's getting involved." His hand moves over the folds of the cloth of her jacket, settling just beside her hip.

She hears her pills rattle in their bottle.

"We are taking immortality away from of the gods and putting the control of time and lives back into our moral hands."

He smiles.

"No more begging for boons from gods who care not to answer or to leave us to our flawed fates."

His hand grips the cloth — not her — but the cloth, the pocket. Her pill bottle rattles again.

"Drace, I wish to make you immortal. For Larsa. For yourself."

Leaning back into his chair, he takes her hands into his own, smiling softly like a priest who has seen heaven's promise, like a confirmed believer, smiling softly, softly as if he were sitting with a lover. The emperor's son is going mad. She's sure of it.

Wherever his hands touch, her skin crawls.

She wants run.

She cannot.

She remains calm, still. She even tries to smile. Not to much. Just a little.

Just remain pleasant. This will all be over soon enough.


End file.
